Wednesday, October 4, 2017

"the triumph of action and technologism over contemplation"

"The crisis in liturgy is therefore a crisis of the first order that goes right to the heart of the 'social question,' and thus the human question. Objectively, the loss of a transcendent horizon signals the eclipse of what Cardinal Ratzinger calls liturgy's 'cosmic dimension,' the relationship between the paschal mystery and the meaning and destiny of the universe. Liturgy thus loses its connection with life. Subjectively, it represents a deficit of adoration, wonder, and gratitude. Both are reflected in the inorganic and a-cultural character of contemporary liturgical development and its failure to generate a culture of festive gratitude capable of reflecting the mysteries of creation and redemption in time and space or to penetrate the world of human making. The crisis in liturgy thus reflects the triumph of action and technologism over contemplation. To acquiesce to this crisis is ultimately to deliver up the laity to the inhuman dynamism of technological culture. For if there is no place for beauty and for contemplative making in the life of the contemporary Church, what hope is there for the future of human making as a whole? Those who would argue for the 'democratic' leveling of liturgy, for removing of all trace of grandeur or mystery or transcendence in the name of 'the people' argue at cross purposes with themselves."Michael Hanby, "Homo faber and/or Homo adorans: on the place of human making in a sacramental cosmos," Communio: international Catholic review 38, no. 2 (Summer 2011): 234-235 (198-236).